"I normally don’t sweat much but this is terrible, I am sweating 24x7. It gets worse while shooting with the lights and make-up on. I drink lots of fluids to keep myself cool." Rituparna Sengupta shooting for Sekhar Das’s Necklace on Wednesday afternoon (Picture by Aranya Sen)

Rain and storm lashed the sauna city on Wednesday evening, bringing relief to most but probably robbing some Writers’ Buildings employees of an excuse not to work the morning after.

Stifling humidity had pushed the discomfort index to 14 degrees above normal in the afternoon till the season’s third Nor’wester brought over 14mm of rain after dark on a day that saw a dharna against the heat — or maybe the rain god — in a corridor of power at the seat of governance.

The swelter saw employees on the third floor of Writers’ leaving their seats and squatting in the corridor to protest the lack of air-conditioners at the workplace.

From 10.30am to 5pm, it was stopwork in the departments of information and cultural affairs, law and transport with posters screaming “No AC no work” and “Beat the heat if you want work” on the walls. “It is impossible to work on the top floor without an AC. We will come to Writers’ but abstain from work till we are assured of air-conditioning,” said a protester, clearly hot under the collar.

But the evening Nor’wester may have poured cold water on the no-work plans for Thursday, with the temperature being dragged down immediately by two to three degrees.

“The discomfort during the day was primarily because of the high humidity — 63 per cent to 91 per cent — without rain,” said Gokul Chandra Debnath, the director of the Regional Meteorological Centre at Alipore.

“On a day without rain, minimum humidity in the 60s can make things very uncomfortable as the normal for this time of the year in Calcutta is 40-45 per cent,” said an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

A Nor’wester after the oppressive heat was on the radar, and it struck around 7.45pm with spells of rain and thundershower. Jamshedpur’s local meteorological office confirmed it was a Nor’wester, with wind speed of 56kmph.

According to the IMD, “incursion of abundant moisture” over south Bengal is taking place under the influence of strong southerly and southwesterly winds from the Bay of Bengal. Adding to the moisture content is the influence of a trough of low pressure passing through Gangetic Bengal.

“The weather on Thursday could be uncomfortable, but not as much as Wednesday,” said the IMD official. “The trough should also weaken in 24 hours or so, resulting in a dip in humidity levels.”

But will that be enough to send the protesting Writers’ employees back to their desks on Thursday?

Information and cultural affairs minister Anjan Bera said: “I know how difficult it is to work in the peak of summer on the third floor. I had alerted the chief minister and the PWD minister about the problem.”

PWD minister Kshiti Goswami said: “A transformer needs to be set up for ACs in that section. We would be looking into the matter. I will also be sending a proposal to the finance minister for central airconditioning at Writers’.”

A protester owing allegiance to Trinamul later sniped: “Wait for the cool winds of change to blow through Writers’ next summer.”